Yelü Bei
Eldest son of Emperor Taizu of Liao; after giving up the throne he fled by sea to Later Tang. A famous painter of the Liao dynasty.
Life
Avid reader of the Book of Han
Yelü Bei was the eldest son of Abaoji, Emperor Taizu of Liao, and was named crown prince. Well versed in Chinese learning and fond of reading, he built a library on Mount Yiwulü that held ten thousand volumes.
King of Dongdan
In 926 the Liao conquered Balhae and set up the Dongdan Kingdom on its former territory, with Yelü Bei as King of Dongdan. After Taizu's death, his mother, Empress Shulü, favored her second son Yelü Deguang, and Yelü Bei voluntarily gave up the throne.
Fled by sea to Later Tang
Distrusted by Deguang, in 930 he crossed the sea by boat and fled to the Later Tang, carving a poem as he left: "The small mountain presses on the big mountain; the big mountain has no strength at all. Ashamed to face the people of my homeland, from now on I go to a foreign land." He was a skilled painter, and his paintings of mounted archers circulated in the Central Plains. In 937, before the defeated last emperor of Later Tang, Li Congke, burned himself to death, he had Yelü Bei killed.
Legacy
Yelü Bei was the member of the Liao imperial family most steeped in Han Chinese culture; the History of Liao says his yielding of the state "may be called magnificent indeed," and his son later took the throne as Emperor Shizong of Liao.
Major works & achievements
- Paintings of mounted archers
- Library of ten thousand volumes
Did you know? His painting "Mounted Archers" is said to survive to this day.
Key dates
- 916Named crown prince
- 926Made King of Dongdan
- 927Gave up the throne
- 930Fled by sea to Later Tang
- 937Killed by Li Congke